Mars Hill: The Acropolis vs the Areopagus
In Acts 17 we get this description of part of Paul’s travels taking him to Athens. While he waited there for some of his travel companions to join him, he got on the business of preaching the Good News of the gospel of Jesus to the Athenian people.
Paul met with the local Jews and some God fearing Greeks in the Synagogue, as well as in marketplace day by day with those who happened to be there.
The message that Paul took to the people was this message of Jesus risen from the dead and the need for all men and women through turning from their sins to come into a relationship with God. Paul had already preached in Thessalonica and Berea without a warm reception, in fact you could say his reception was a bit over warm and he had to escape to the safety of Athens and await his companions arrival.
While he was in Athens he encountered this group of philosophers who got into a dispute over his message. Some of them asking “what is this babbler trying to say?”
It appears from here Paul was taken to a meeting of the Areopagus which was a court of high ranking Athenian citizens. The likes of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle and others had previously in past generations given account of themselves in this place. The Areopagus was prior to Roman occupation the Greek equivalent of the Roman senate. The name itself is derived from Ares the Greek God of War and big rock. “The mythological origins of this function of the Court of the Areopagus, [claim]ing that once upon a time the actual god Ares was put on trial for the murder of Halirrothius, the son of [another god] Poseidon. (http://www.stoa.org/projects/demos/article_areopagus?
page=all&greekEncoding=) This place where Paul had to give account of himself was Ares big rock. In Roman times the name became Mars hill, as the Romans swapped out Ares for Mars the Roman god of War.
So around 50 AD we find Paul in this place below the Acropolis, The Acropolis which for Athenians was a very holy place. Our travel guide told us that only Athenians could enter the Acropolis back in the day. This was their equivalent of the Jewish temple.
A couple of historical facts that are worth knowing re that the city was democratically ruled, this was the birth place of democracy. The Roman republic absorbed the city in the year 146 BC, after the battle of Corinth.
So in Acts 17 we have this account of Paul being taken before the Areopagus to give account because the locals believed he was advocating foreign gods. At that time there were buildings on and around this hill that is today referred to as Mars Hill. Today this hill is back to how it was prior to having buildings on it apart from some steps and signs, and also a few signs of where buildings had been.
As an aside Paul had been in the city for some time. He would have with tourists of that time have visited the Acropolis and seen the temples to various gods, as Rochelle and I did on our holiday, These were the temples of worship to the Greek gods who inhabited Mount Olympus to the north, Zeus and his eleven fellow gods were worshipped here, in the various temples such as the one to Athena Nike “the winged victory goddess” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temple_of_Athena_Nike.
The Acropolis is extremely revered in Greece. There’s even a story found in the “book of Lists” ( I have found a number of sources referring to this story) about how In 1821 Ottoman armies occupied Greece and at one point when the Greeks attacked the Turks were forced to hole up in the Acropolis. From the height of the Acropolis, the Turks fired down at the Greeks until suddenly they ran out of ammunition. They decided to knock down the temple columns to get at the lead cores and foundation joints to make bullets. The Greeks upon hearing this were horrified that a sacred temple was being destroyed and for ammunition even. To prevent this the Greeks sent their own ammunition up to the Turks and the battle was resumed.”
Paul was distressed at the number of idols to these gods that he had seen in Athens.
There is an interesting dimension to the discussion. Paul does not go about berating the Athenians for their worship of idols. He takes the discussion to a new level. “Men of Athens! I see in every way that you are very religious. For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an alter with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you.”
Paul then goes on to tell the Athenians that “God does not live in temples built by human hands and that he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything.”
I preach about this topic this week because while we were on holiday last month we visited both of these sites which are really only a stone’s throw apart. The Acropolis, with the Parthenon, Erechtheion, Athena Nike temple and other ruins that are being reconstructed are all really quite amazing. As you walk up to these buildings you are amazed at the grandeur of them and blown away as you realise that the Athenian people built these by hand over 2440 years ago. Eight thousand tourists climb the Acropolis daily to take in the sight of these amazing temples.
Here’s a few photos we have of the place in the time that we had there.
The wonder of the whole thing is that God, the God who created the whole universe doesn’t need a temple like these, in fact Paul goes onto say he doesn’t “live in temples live in temples built by hands”. In Act’s we have this account of Paul addressing these leading citizens of Athens below what for many was the holiest place in their city. Paul tells them that all that up there was not the dwelling place of the most high God. The God that he knew very well, and that God didn’t need an image made of stone or gold, all he wanted was that people should turn from life without him to life with him. That word repent, is an interesting one. It in my head anyway brings with it a picture of blokes with signs that the end is neigh, but what it really means is to turn around from going in your own direction, a direction that leads to death and go in God’s direction and will for your life, a direction that leads to life eternal.
Back to the photos, these two photos one of Rochelle and I with the Acropolis in the background and the other of me and Athens and a hill in the background were taken from the Areopagus or Mars Hill as we know it today.
The interesting thing was we talked to the lady taking our tour group and mentioned that we were Christian ministers and really wanted to visit Mars Hill, at the time we were on top of the Acropolis having been given the run down on all the Greek temples. We left the group and went off to find Mars Hill, which as you can see we did. Now there is nothing spectacular about this hill, though the views from it are. There were a couple of signs that pointed out that Paul had introduced Christianity to the locals in this place.
What amazes me still is that this lump of bare rock was the place that Paul delivered understanding of eternal life and the resurrection of Jesus from the dead to all the learned Greeks gathered there, some of who sneered at his message, others of who asked to hear more, and some who believed. The last photo shows the highest hill in Athens, Lykavittos Hill on it is a church. Paul's visit to Athens had an impact, an impact that continued through Europe and through History.
When we climbed Mars Hill and looked around apart from the amazing history around us, apart from the views of Athens, apart from the crowds and the heat I got this realisation that the events that happened here on this bare rock, trumped all of it. Why because these events were tied so closely so intimately to the events that occurred on another bare rock called Golgotha just outside Jerusalem.
There are many churches in Greece, many throughout Europe, influenced by the events of that witness of Paul to the death and resurrection of Jesus. But there is no church built on Mars Hill, That meeting on Mars Hill turned heads away from worship in stone temples to a new direction, worshipping God by living in his will.
The thing that trumped all that went before is commemorated with an empty rock. This is so much a depiction of how God works in our lives, you might be thinking what? God leaves us an empty rock? Paul’s words from 1 Corinthians 1:22-31 might help clear this up. “Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom, 23 but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, 24 but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. 25 For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.
26 Brothers and sisters, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. 27 But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. 28 God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, 29 so that no one may boast before him. 30 It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption.31 Therefore, as it is written: “Let the one who boasts boast in the Lord.”
As I came down from the Acropolis to Mars Hill, I had an enhanced understanding of this. What God wants is relationship and a community of believers who are making a difference, not just on a one to one level but on an eternal scale. From what I just read from Paul; “Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him.”
The dynamic is not about buildings, about the extremes of hard work. Paul said it on Mars Hill, “and he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else. From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; he determined the exact times set for them and the exact places they should live. God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. For in him we live and move and have our being.” Acts 17:25-28. God is calling us to be bare rock people.
This is the two great commandment stuff, Matthew 22:37-39, what was it Jesus said? Jesus said: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” Jesus never said, build me a huge temple, what he did say was love God and love others, what the kingdom of God doesn’t need is another massive structure to his glory, however there are pointers in his and his disciples teaching about building. Check these out:
From Ephesians 2:21; “We are carefully joined together in him [Jesus], becoming a holy temple for the Lord.”
1 Peter 2:5 “you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.”
Or Jesus words from John 17:22, “I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one. I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you loved me.”
This building as God the Father would have us built is loving community founded on and anchored in Christ Jesus words, and reliant on The Holy Spirit living as his community, counter culturally living for and as part of the Kingdom of God. Jesus himself said that “by this will all men know you are my disciples IF you have love for one another.” John 13:35
This is “rend your heart not your garment” Joel 2:13 stuff. Back in the Old Testament times when you were to make a great deal about returning to God or grieving over your actions you would rend your garments. The best time to do this was not when you had on your new Levi’s or Guess jeans, an Armani suit or your lovely Versace dress because to rend is to rip and tear, to shred. In the day, this was often done in sack cloth. God sees through the pretence, through the showmanship. He wants our hearts…he wants them changed and made anew, could be an interesting song theme that.
What God wants from us is a people who are bare rock people, we are not called to be all pretty on the outside and for insides to be a muddle of brokenness, sin and confusion. Real healing comes from laying our hearts open to God, allowing him access to our inner most, allowing him access to our very core and then to allow his Spirit enter and change us that we become more like Christ.
There’s the challenge of his word, God is not found in temples made of stone but in lives laid down, for the bare rock trumps the temple, community achieves kingdom, and rendered hearts are right with God.
Today God is asking you to respond, to give your life as an act of worship, to be open to being part of an honouring and worshipping community, to make your life his dwelling place, to give him your heart.
How will you respond?
